Scrolling through Reddit recently I came across a video of a person swapping batteries in an electric scooter.
While the video appears to be sped up a little, the battery swap looks to be as simple as can be.
The scooter, the battery, and the battery swap station are all made by Gogoro. The Taiwan-based company claims 200,000 daily battery swaps.
I know what some of you are thinking. You’re right — a scooter and an airplane share little in common.
But it sure would be cool to see this sort of tech in the lighter end of aviation. Land at an airport, pull up to the battery station, swap the batteries, and pull away in a few moments.
Or for a flight school, have a surplus of charged batteries on hand so the next flight lesson can take place as soon as the student and instructor are ready.
That would be cool.
Hybrid hydrogen-electric powerplants are the solution for the future. Hydrogen fuel cells have a byproduct of water and electric motors have a better maintenance life cycle. If someone can figure out how to make a compact hydrogen fuel cell for airplanes, GA has it made.
Honda is discontinuing the Clarity, a 100kw hydrogen fuel cell – 17kWhr lithium battery hybrid.
It is a $59k car with a huge hydrogen tank where the trunk would be….and is pressurized to 10,000 psi !
So, it’s about $25k more than a gas Honda and weights 2-1/2 tons. !
This type system would not work in an aircraft.
Then there’s the availability issue of high pressure hydrogen at airports.
“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris…[because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping.” — Orville Wright
That was 1903-09 and the materials were not the quality that was developed by WW1, 1917.
The motors and crontrollers are very well developed and are of high efficiency and power.
It is the battery which now uses the lightest metal know, Lithium, has 16th the energy density of gasoline. There is yet, no known materials that will increase the energy density to that of gasoline in kWhrs/ pound.
Yeah, and at the time Orville Wright made his comment there was as yet no known engine (or airframe for that matter) that could make trans-oceanic flight possible. And if everyone had thrown up their hands and been content to believe there never would be, that would still be the case today.
So that leaves out that market
, what’s the point?
Battery-powered airplanes are not practical. “plane” and simple. It’s the tail wagging the dog, promoted by the liberal, greenies. What a waste!
What a shame that you think scientific progress is some sort of subversive plot. Good thing some people actually care about improving things and making them better.
Tesla originally promoted a battery change in 90 seconds for the model S. But abandoned the idea for the supercharger…
The 100 kwhr battery weighs over 1,000 lbs., so swapping it was probably not a great idea.
Don’t forget if you drop a Li battery, it usually damages it and causes a thermal runaway event (Fire, kind of like nukes being called Thermonuclear event generators). So if you drop it you bought it. As an equivalence, a Prius battery set is about $6000 with trade-in, I think, or double without.
Yes, I agree it’s a great idea. Unfortunately, the two batteries in the Pipstrel Velis Electro (the only certified electric aircraft so far) weigh 70 kg / 155 lb each — for just 90 minutes of flight in a very light two-seater — so battery swap would require the use of a winch, and it would be only a matter of time before a rushed student, instructor, pilot, or line person damaged the plane or injured themself trying to do a fast swap between lessons.
David,
Very well summarized and my thoughts exactly.
I might also add a point about cooling. I don’t know about the Pipistrel but, often, in order to address thermal management issues, large battery packs like this require either (relatively) low charge/discharge rates or fairly elaborate cooling solutions. And this, in turn, often involves some sort of “plumbing” in the form of liquid cooling lines, heat pipes, or air ducting, any of which can complicate the installation and removal process.
My point being this: The current, practical, engineering and logistical challenges involved in making these easily swappable are not insignificant. Factor in the variables associated with hopping in an aircraft (for any given flight) that is now dependent on a battery of utterly unknown-to-the-pilot condition, status, or pedigree and I see a lot of risk areas that I (personally) don’t like.
Sure, battery health monitoring is a thing and has been for some time. Yet, we still see stories about batteries causing all kinds of chaos, even when they are just in the cabin.
Mix all that with the FAA’s historic philosophy towards maintenance and post-maintenance requirements and it is hard for me to imagine a world where I can walk up to an FBO battery vending machine and swap out my battery like I’m exchanging an empty propane cylinder for my grill, and then go pop it in my plane and fly away.
Then, let’s not forget that those two Pipistrel batteries are the weight equivalent of nearly 52 gallons of Avgas, but provide only 1.5 hours of flight. So, in terms of gallons per hour equivalency, the Pipistrel is “burning” over 34 gallons per hour. Oh, and I’m pretty sure that not “filling the tanks” to trade range for payload or CG isn’t really an option, not that I would want to if the best I could ever manage was 1.5 hours worth of “fuel”.